Today I win in the kitchen.

I'm proud of myself for coming up with some very low point, yet filling food. Normally when I decide to throw ingredients together, I'm rarely happy with the result. But now I've done it twice, creating fairly quick, low point yet somewhat yummy food.

Yesterday's Skillet:

(that is.. things I threw into a pan and then happily ate)

1 small onion, chopped

2T Natures Soy butter

5 small canned potatoes, sliced thin

SM bunch of spinach

4 sliced mushrooms

2T FF cottage cheese

Salt n' Pepper

Water as needed.

Total points: 5. Ohhhh yeah!

And it made a nice heap of food on a small plate.

Today in the soup pot:

2c roughly water. (I never measure water if I 'm hacking it)

1 bouillon cube, I think low sodium/vegetable

4T mixed lentils, 1 scoop each

2 sm onions, chopped

Pinch of Cayene pepper, and chives

.5T pre-diced garlic

1 pkg spinach shirataki (soy) fettuccine noodles RINSED!!!!

1c mushrooms, sliced

5 cherry tomatoes, squished!

1T Hosin sauce (or something else for flavour)

1 bunch fresh spinach, torn up (throw in at end, it'll cook FAST)

1 egg, stirred in pot (throw in at end, it'll cook FAST)

*note: noddles are ridonculously long, be sure to cut them before serving, or cut against side of bowl with spoon.

It makes enough for 2 servings IMHO, and the total for both servings is 5P+.

Bonne Appetite!

I'd love to hear about others low point mish-mash meals!

* The picture used is one from the net until I eat the rest of mine, when I'll try to take an image. I didn't have a roll or oil with it.

Kale chips: Definilty don't knock it until you've tried em!

Trying something new: Kale chips. I can definitely get behind these! I saw someone mention them somewhere online, and took note. They are supposed to be chip replacers.. something that would be most welcomed in my home! I soon saw them at The Nut House, my local bulk food store, for $7.99 a bag. Ouch!! That's a little steep since you can buch a HUGE bunch of Kale for anywhere form $1 - $2.50. So.. To the grocery store I went!

To make the Kale Chips, I fisrt cut the leaves off the stems of half a bunch of Kale, rubbed the leaves in sesame oil, both sides, (1.5T) then sprinkled with salt and sesamee seeds, both sides. Both recipes I read said to put in the oven at 350 for 11-15 minutes, but I think 8 is more accurate for my stove, as a good portion was burnt! One source recommend using wax paper, but I use as few one-time-use products as I can, so I decided to nix it. So.. in the oven they went, with the timer set for 11 minutes. They are done when the tips just start to turn brown. Mine were in too long, and were sporting black and brown tips when they came out. Still, those portions very easily crumbled off, and the rest was quite edible.

Results: I wouldn't coat them with oil as I did last time, I think next time I'll use a spray, as they were way too oily for my stomach. I'm looking forwards to playing with different flavourings, especially Dill Pickle, which I can't seem to get enough of lately. This I think is a GREAT alternative, or.. additive... to your snack table for the health conscious at your next get together. I very large bowl's worth can be made at once, though it'll dissapear quite quickly I bet. They are very light, and cripsy. I think "Crispy Air" would not be too far off the mark as a description, and yet they still are very satisfying, and somehow akin to Pringles.. you can't eat just one... or one bowl full...

I am looking forward to playing with different small light seeds, ground nuts, and other flavourings. Oh, and with the baking, Kale looses all of it's bitterness. There's little taste aside from what you sprinkle them with, and the salt comes through very strongly, a little goes a very long way.

I honestly wasn't sure I'd like em.. but I was curious enough to go for it. I'm SO glad I did.. I'm sure the popcorn will be happy for a break, or companion.

A can by any other name... is sweeter!!!

So in other news, canned fruit is sneaky!!

I bought two small cans of crushed pineapple yesterday from two brands, Delmont and one from Dole. I wonder what's up with them both starting with "D"..

I wanted to compare them for taste. I noticed they had different nutritional values (points), which I though odd.. one was worth 1 extra point for a cup of fruit. Looking closer, I noticed that the Pineapples grown in the Philippines have more sugar than those grown in Thailand, so they count higher. Of course, before even looking at this, my tongue chose the sweeter pineapple in my taste test... no surprise there! But a word to the wise... which I guess most of you already knew... the same product from different companies will have different points values. So I guess it's worth it to figure them out while in the grocery stores. Have fun!

Old Threads

So when's the last time you cleaned out your closet? Was it scary at all? How many T-shirts, jeans and other special items have you held onto over the months or years because they were favourites, despite not having fit in eons? I'm currently taking a break from sorting through clothes to write this, and it made me think of another motivation tip. That being, go through your old clothes, and find a few favourite pieces that you'd be thrilled to wear again! Rather than hide it from view, hang it up on hangers, and then on your wall, or somewhere where it'll be in constant view. Put a sticker in plain view on the T-shirt, and write down a reasonable date that you expect to be able to fit back into this outfit. Don't forget to be kind to youreself.. make it an "easy goal", as in 1 or 2 sizes smaller, not 5+. Reach your first goal, and then set the next. Put up an easy goal, and perhaps a longer term goal, such as a bikini, at the same time. Make it extra fun by including some fun underwear.

The hard part

I am notorious, or perhaps the most skilled person in the world, for starting something, and not following through when it comes to things like "dieting". It's just so easy to loose track.. miss a day... which then turns into months. This is what happens everytime I need to leave my routine.. such as visiting my family on weekends, or going to see Mark. It's always so hard to get back on track. Still, I havn't been doing too badly.

I've discovered that I'm at my weakest between 7pm - 11pm, a period of time where I just care less about what I'm putting in my mouth, because what is in front of me is yummy. It doesn't seem to matter if I'm at home, at BP or elsewhere.. my resolve just seems to about face and walks out.

What really doesn't help is the bread giveaway from the church. I only pick it up about once a month. It's so unbelievably delicious, easy and quick to prepare... if only they could make bread out of tofu like they do my now beloved Shirataki noodles. ...

I'm still tracking of a sort. . I'm writing down everything I eat.. but my points books are incogneeto.. so I'm not sure of the points I'm consuming.

Side note: The large Korean grocery on bloor near Christie carries Shirataki noodles in 3 or 4 different types. The most popular Angel Hair Pasta variety is around $2.75 /pkg, and the less popular varieties, including fettuchini and macaroni are $1.75. I stocked up... 8 pgks and they last until February. Only 40 calories for the entire bag!! Truely a miracle!

I was away..

I was away for 6 days. I knew I'd have little choice over the foods I'd have to eat, as I was staying with guests, and didn't have much control over where or when I'd eat as I was with a group, so I made a decision not to worry about it. I was curious to see what the results were, and I was expecting to gain back everything I'd lost. I was lucky however, I gained back a little bit, but less than I thought. I was also curious to see my own mood about this decision, and, though I enjoyed my food-vacation, I do find myself wishing I'd tried to stick to more of my "diet". I would have had a great deal of pride in myself had I done so. But at least I am back home, and have started back on track today. I have yet again proven to myself that the best defense is a counter free of clutter, and some idea of exactly what is to be eaten for which meals. Staring at your kitchen, with the Bellymontser or Muchie-Kin screaming at you is not the time to be deciding what to eat.

Thank Gawd for Laughing cow cheese and Ryvetta. And porridge. BTW.. Laughing Cow comes in French Onion flavour in the States. I havn't been able to try it yet... but I'm now on the hunt! It won't help me with my weight goals.. but Donna H. clued me in on how to make mashed potatoes and pancakes, two items I don't normally care for, delicious!

Anyhow. I am off to the library, and then the Korean grocery store in search of Miracle Noodle goodness. And some steps towards my "daily" 10,000 count.

Off and On

So my cravings got the best of me for a little while. I've discovered that bike pirates is bad for me.. there's too much yummy stuff there.. even if it is all vegan and mostly vegetable.. the downside is that there is usually pizza on games nights... I'll have to come up with a work around for that. And of course... this new into things... I know I have to be very careful in not setting myself up to fail.. so I know when I can restrict myself and when I can't. IE, at this point, when I go home.. pretty much all bets are off. My mom's place is FULL of evil food, and not only that, it was thanksgiving. On the up side... I've never (in memory) eaten so little at a family celebration, and I refrained from seconds. I was still stuffed.. but very nicely so. Dessert completely killed all staved off calories.. and while obviously this "plan" won't work in the future.. I'm proud with my baby step.. of not over filling my plate the first time, and not going for seconds. So I'm back where I started almost.. but at least the scale blessed me with under 200 on the scale this am, which is very encouraging. So veggies and being really good.. will hopefully set things up again.

I met M last night at her weight watchers meeting. The people were nice, and I did like the atmosphere, the sharing, the support group ect... but until I'm working again, I can't even think of joining. I would like to try it for three months and see how I do on the plan. I picked up the new pedeomter, which is exciting. It's always easier for me to stick with something when I have a new toy to play with.. cause.. then I have to force myself to use it. Unfortunately, yesterday was the first.. and impressively only day so far, where I didn't take the fiber and paraway from my cleanse.. which I"m not too impressed about.. but I can go take it once I'm finished writing this. I did take it the rest of the weekend while at my moms though.. another good thing.. as it's too easy for me to fall off the bandwagon for a week or more with situational changes like being away for a weekend.

Along with the pedometer, I also picked up the 3 month tracking journal, which is invaluable for really being aware of how much you are eating, and for me, keeping on tabs with something. It came with two food count reference books, which will make things easier.

I discovered a new cookbook this weekend.. I think M had shown me the Skinny taste website.. but I'm not sure if I'd seen the Hungry Girl site before.. I think I was confusing the two. When I was home this weekend, I saw my brother's girlfriends copy of a HG recipe book, and yesterday I checked out her site. That, along with a WW 5 ingredients book I will likely eventually pick up (so long as every other recipe isn't full of raw peppers and tomatoes... ) will also be really helpful. They say that once you start looking for or working towards something, or that once you find a path you are meant to be on... things to aid you seem to fall out of the sky and into your lap. This really seems to be true in this case... all these little things are popping up.. lighting the way forwards, helping to make the seemingly insurmountable not just possible, but almost easy. For me, these include finding a delicious protein supplement that is fairly affordable and does double duty with chocolate cravings, discovering Shirataki, turkey sausages and other healhty but yummy alternatives, getting a new pedometer, finding the FIT DAY online support forum, knowing enough to log my daily weight on a calender, having super affordable produce store down the block, having other people IRL to look up too who've lost a significant amount of weight, finding good recipe sources, having and end goal in with a tropical trip to act as encouragement .. and a number of other tips and tricks I've learning about that will be the subject of upcoming entries.

Well... Off to battle the Elephant and the Sludge!

Things that help...

So... for most of us... weight loss is no fun. I used to be especially bad at giving into whims and cravings... any single one that came up. I sometimes feel like my cravings and food wants are a 3 year old child, whining, crying and pestering, with no cognitive ability to understand the "why not" towards desire fulfillment. And its' as though that child has been whining for 2 hours straight. It is not so easy to distract, it's fairly undistractable. Withholding just feeds the strength of the craving, and makes it harder to resist.

Mostly my tactic is to find some low calorie substitute. The old.. "no you cannot have a cookie but you may have an orange" technique. Sometimes it works. Barely.

Cerebrally I know of a few techinque to use, and hopefully, as I use them more often, the cravings will be re trained. My my mother did a few courseloads worth of nutrition and health studying while my father was combating cancer. I'm likely to mention her often in my postings. She happened across a company called (at the time) Enrich, who dealt in high quality, sold only through dealers nutritional supplements. They invite anyone to become a rep, and my parents did so, going often to nutrition health talks and presenting their story at small, local public seminars.

This company empowered their clients with more nutritional information, and reading lists of reputable books for those who cared to do further research. This is actually quite important. When you want to learn about a new topic, often we turn the Wikipedia and the web, and some to a book store or library. Sometimes you'll turn to a friend or relative for information. But really, how do you, or they, really know how accurate and reliable any information is? At some point I'll put a reading list on here for anyone interested. The one book I will mention here, rather, tomb, is a reference book called "Prescriptions for Natural Health". There are variations such as "Prescriptions for natural remedies". Brand new, they are close to $50+. I found mine in a used book store for $15, so it can pay to look around first.

From all this research, one golden nugget of info learn was that whenever we have a craving, it is our body trying to get certain nutrients that it is missing to do it's job. But it's a stupid system. It doesn't necessarily know what foods contains the missing nutrients.. it just says "Eat!! Eat something.. and maybe I'll get what I need!!" The trick is, once you have some idea of what you might be deficient in, or what it is your body needs, (Asian holistic medicine can easily help with this.. sometimes all you have to do is evaluate the color of your tongue for clues) you can then feed yourself what is wanted from your system. Overtime, I believe that your body starts recognizing which foods give it what it needs, and you start craving those items.

I've also heard that once you wean yourself off of sugars, and fill your diet with wholesome foods, you will completely loose all cravings for chocolate, sugar, and the like. A hard concept to understand, I know!

So... to deal with cravings, you first need to understand what your body needs. The introduction on vitamins and minerals in the book I mentioned above is an excellent source, as it debunks common mis-representations in our currently accepted food pyramid and in magazines and health info everywhere. For instance, your body really does need 6 - 8 cups, as in measure cups of water, every day to properly do it's duty. And that is pure water, as in, tea, coffee and juice don't count. If you're not a water person... get into the habit of just chugging a glass back every few hours, and get it over with. I will try to find the source for this online soon.

Till then... till next time.

There is hope for tuna afterall!

So.. 4pm rolled around. And my belly said.. "Hey!!! Feed me. Now!"

And my brain said, "Okay.. we'll feed the belly.. but remember the elephant... and your commitment.. Jamaica is closer with every passing minute!! Eat some protein, and something healthy"

Any some other voice said... "Oh crap. I can't be bothered to make food.. I don't want to waste time making food.. can't I just have protein-less cereal or super fatty grilled cheese?" Le sigh. All my quick go to's are too fatening or not fullfulling. Yeesh.

Looking through my cupboard.. I think.. I should have some tuna. First stop: the interweb. Or the wondrous O'verse as I like to call it. Query: How to make tuna NOT fishly unpalatible.

I can't say it helped much. Back to the kitchen, to stare into to fridge. I was leaning towards some mockery of a tuna melt. And then the idea began to form..

I took my trusty box of ready-veggies from the fridge. This is a lidded container I keep in the fridge of my fresh veggie stock, easy to pull all items out at once, use what you need, and then easy to put away. It also makes it easier to keep tabs on what needs to be used up, rather than opening the fridge produce drawer, and inspecting 12 different items at once.

So..the answer ended up being a type of tuna stir fry.

How it was done:

(all measurements are eyeballed approximates)

Salt and Pepper

Garlic and R.Pepper shaker

1/4 c stick-sliced zucchini

1/10th of a red pepper; sliced

1 TBSP Canola Oil

1C and as needed water

1/4 cup of broccolie floretts

2 chopped baby carrots

1/4 c chopped cauliflower florretts

1/2 a "juicebox" of coconut soy milk drink

1/2 tbls of green curry paste (pre mix with water)

3 tbls half and half cream (or milk)

1/2 tbls of chopped shallot onion

1/2 small red potato, sliced paper thin

1/2 can tuna (from water)

1 triangle of light laughing cow cheese

As items were ready/chopped they went into the wok. Prepping and cooking took about 15 minutes tops, but I wasn't paying attention. The ingredients were all basically chosen as they were things in my fridge needing be be used up. This didnt' take much time because all veggies are right there in the box. I take one out, chop off what is needed, then swap it for the next one. I'm amazed at how much time this saves me, and why I never though of it before.

Anyhow. The results were actually quite yummy, though a tad spicy for my taste.

It was certainly a mind trick to think I was eating something yummy, slightly creamy, and that this was really all healthy ingredients. To make it even healthier next time, I'd ommit the small amount of Canola oil, trade the half and half for skim milk, and omit the piece of cheese (that really didnt' do anything for the meal) Oh and best of all?? I barely even noticed the taste of tuna!!! I'll be making this again for sure! Bonus: Clean up was nice and quick! All leftover veggies went back in their box, and all went in the fridge! No re wrapping and placing 8 individual ingredients in and out of the fridge.

The "Hi, I'm new here" introductory entry. Or what it's all about.

I don't particularly enjoy cooking.. except when I do. Generally I try to stay out of my kitchen, for I know that once I step inside, if I really start to create something edible, I'm usually in there for a minimum of 2 hours, and my evening is gone. So I try to avoid this. My eating habits usually tend to fall into the "what is the absolute fastest thing I can find to fill my belly with?" Bonus points if I don't have to use the microwave, and I certainly don't want to be involved with taking a number of things out of the fridge, cutting them up (never mind dirtying pots or pans) and I definitely have no interest in turning on the stove. Oh, and aside from soup.. I'm not a fan of canned food.

So.. has anyone out there yet asked... "Well what on earth do you EAT?" I certainly wasn't eating very healthy for a long number of years. It's one of the dangers of living solo. I would eat chips, crackers with kraft sliced cheese (a favorite quickfood) cookies, though rarely, as I know how disgustinly short a time a whole bag would last.. so I'd only by a bag every 3 months or soo.. grilled cheese I ate mostly cereal. Rice Krispies, a bi monthly box of resses pieces or golden grhamas.. boiled eggs, canned soup.. ect. If a meal could be prepared, eaten and cleaned up within 10 or 15 minutes, then stove exceptions were made.

It was a delightfully time saving way of "eating". Don't get me wrong... there were numerous times where I'd pull out all the pots and pans, and half empty my fridge to make squash with chicken and raisins, or rissoto, green curry and other thai dishes, but they'd always take 2 -4 hours by the recipies were found, ingredients measured, cooking cooked, food eaten, dishes washed, leftovers and other not used ingredient portions put away, extra portions for lunches packed and frozen... and then it'd be nearly time for bed... and I'd spend another two weeks vowing not repeat the long cooking experience again any time soon.

Part of it is again, the lonliness of solo living and eating. You spend 40 minutes+ creating something that while it may taste great... something about not having someone to share it with takes away from the flavour. Company and conversation... two magical ingredients that make or break any meal.

So .. while I loved my simple and quick eats, as you may have well guessed.. I've certainly paid for it.. or rather my body has. I am quite overweight.. and finally.. finally angry enough to do something about it. I'll thank my little sisters upcoming wedding in Jamaica, and memories of my loathsome disgusting body in the dress I had to wear for my older sisters wedding in Panama.. for that final, glorious, golden straw. And the elephant. More about that later.

Anyhow. Somewhere in me, there really is a foodie that loves to cook and bake and make all sorts of restaurant worthy delicacies... when I have ample time and someone to share them with. But the main purpose of this blog is to share with others out there like myself, who are interested in maximizing healthy cooked food, while absolutely minimizing kitchen time. I'll also throw in neat tips that I discover and I'm sure wander over many other topics pertaining to weight loss.

Shall we.... dig in??